Tag: meteorites

Research Laying Groundwork For Off-World Colonies

March 4, 2019                        (sciencedaily.com)

• The University of Central Florida’s Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science’s Exolith Lab creates simulated extraterrestrial surface material, ranging from lunar soil to Martian dirt, in order to lay the “groundwork” (pun intended) for establishing off-world colonies. Their most recent study is on asteroid surfaces, which Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at UCF and lead author of the study, published in the journal Icarus.

• The wealth management company Morgan Stanley estimates that the space economy will be worth more than $1.1 trillion by 2040. Metzger believes that by the end of the century there will be more economic activity off planet Earth than on planet Earth. “With economics moving in that direction, it’s important for us to get a head start trying to create the regulatory and engineering environments to make sure everything is done safely and justly,” Metzger says.

• The team measured meteorites’ (as reference material) mineralogical composition; elemental composition; densities of rocks and crushed rocks known as regolith; mechanical strength; magnetic susceptibility; volatile release pattern; and particle size destruction. This standardization is highly needed, Metzger said, as previous attempts at creating simulated extraterrestrial surface material have used everything from floral foam to beach sand. If tests are performed on simulant that isn’t similar to the real thing or is not suited for that test, then it makes the test results invalid.

• The team achieved a “high-fidelity simulant”, which “will be very valuable for companies doing asteroid mining, doing tests of constructions of facilities and landing pads, metal extraction and more,” says Metzger. The studies’ co-author, Dan Britt added, “I think we did a good job of producing a simulant that mimics the parent asteroidal material pretty well.”

• Metzger said the research team will continue to grade simulants created in the Exolith Lab as well as offer their grading system to simulants created in other labs. They will also be receiving feedback from the community about improvements in the grading system and will work with the American Society of Civil Engineers for consensus on having the grading standards adopted.

• [Editor’s Note] They’re right about there being more economic activity off-planet than on the Earth by the end of the century. Because this is already true. According to Corey Goode, the largest and most technologically advanced secret space program is the interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate (ICC), which is made up by dozens of mega-rich, multi-national corporations on Earth that have established at least fifteen work colonies on Mars, and who know where else, to manufacture unique technology-based goods, and is conducting ongoing trade with at least nine hundred extraterrestrial species throughout the galaxy.

 

University of Central Florida researchers are already laying the groundwork for the off-world jump by creating standards for extraterrestrial surfaces. Their work was detailed recently in a study published in the journal Icarus.

“I’m firmly convinced that by the end of the century there will be more economic activity off planet Earth than on planet Earth,” says Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at UCF and lead author of the study.

              Phil Metzger

According to the wealth management company, Morgan Stanley estimates the space economy will be worth more than $1.1 trillion by 2040.

“With economics moving in that direction, it’s important for us to get a head start trying to create the regulatory and engineering environments to make sure everything is done safely and justly,” Metzger says.

In the study, Metzger and the team of researchers outlined standards for simulated extraterrestrial surface material and then applied the standards to a simulated extraterrestrial surface material created in the Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science’s Exolith Lab housed at UCF.

While extraterrestrial surface material can range from lunar soil to Martian dirt, Metzger and the researchers created standards specifically for asteroid surfaces in this study.

                      Dan Britt

The team measured mineralogical composition; elemental composition; densities of rocks and crushed rocks known as regolith; mechanical strength; magnetic susceptibility; volatile release pattern; and particle size destruction.

This standardization is highly needed, Metzger said, as previous attempts at creating simulated extraterrestrial surface material have used everything from floral foam to beach sand.

If tests are performed on simulant that isn’t similar to the real thing or is not suited for that test, then it makes the test results invalid, Metzger said.

“We have to communicate what the properties are so everyone knows its limitations so they won’t use it for a test it wasn’t designed to simulate,” Metzger said.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

 

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Extraterrestrial fossils found in meteorite according to scientific team

Chandra-WickramasingheA team of four scientists has written an article in the latest edition of the Journal of Cosmology claiming that a meteorite discovered in Sri Lanka contains evidence of extraterrestrial life. Inside the meteorite, according to Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, the lead scientist and Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, are tiny fossil microbes that are extraterrestrial in origin. The findings of Wickramasinghe and his team in their co-authored article, “Fossil Diatoms in a New Carbonaceous Meteorite’," immediately aroused controversy. In an article in the Huffington Post published on January 19, Lee Spiegal addressed the controversy and Wickramasinghe’s response to early criticism.   Critics claim that the meteorite sample examined by Wickramasinghe’s team was very likely contaminated by Earth based algae. This raises suspicion that once again scientists claiming they have found evidence for extraterrestrial life will be subjected to a firestorm of criticism including direct personal attacks from their peers.

Chandra Wickramasinghe is no stranger to controversy. The Sri Lanka born mathematician was the founder of the theory of Panspermia along with British physicist Fred Hoyle. Panspermia is based on the idea that life is spread throughout the universe in the form of microbes carried on the back of meteorites that travel through the interstellar vacuum. Wickramasinghe believes that the Sri Lanka meteorite is vindication for his controversial theory, and has solid scientific evidence supporting his conclusions.

According to the abstract in Wickramasinghe’s and his co-author’s article:

We report the discovery for the first time of diatom frustules in a carbonaceous meteorite that fell in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka on 29 December 2012. Contamination is excluded by the circumstance that the elemental abundances within the structures match closely with those of the surrounding matrix. There is also evidence of structures morphologically similar to red rain cells that may have contributed to the episode of red rain that followed within days of the meteorite fall. The new data on “fossil” diatoms provide strong evidence to support the theory of cometary panspermia.

Basically, diatoms are a form of algae that are mainly unicellar and form large colonies. They are a major producer in the food chain. Finding fossil diatoms in a meteorite is hard evidence that extraterrestrial life not only exists, but is commonly found throughout the galaxy. Not so according to Phil Plait, who launched a preemptive strike before the major media and public had a chance to digest Chandrasinghe’s findings.

Plait’s column in Slate magazine begins with a very unscientific ad hominem attack since he writes in the article that “sometimes an ad hominem is warranted!” According to Plait:

Wickramasinghe is a proponent of the idea of panspermia: the notion that life originated in space and was brought to Earth via meteorites. It’s an interesting idea and not without some merits. However, Wickramasinghe is fervent proponent of it. Like, really fervent. So much so that he attributes everything to life in space. He’s said that the flu comes from space. He’s said SARS comes from space. He’s claimed living cells found in the stratosphere come from space. (There is no evidence at all they do, and it’s far more likely they are terrestrial.) He’s said a weird red rain in India was from space (when it’s been shown conclusively that it isn’t). The list goes on and on. Wickramasinghe jumps on everything, with little or no evidence, and says it’s from outer space, so I think there's a case to be made for a bias on his part.

Plait finally launches into the main substantive criticism he has to offer which comes from an evolutionary biologist who responded to Plait’s request to analyze Wickramasinghe’s article. Professor Patrick Kociolek from the University of Colorado wrote back to Plait:

… the diversity present in the images represent a wide range of evolutionary history, such that the “source” of the diatoms from outer space, must have gone through the same evolutionary events as here on earth. There are no extinct taxa found, only ones we would find living today…for me it is a clear case of contamination with freshwater.

Essentially, Kociolek and Plait are claiming that Wickramasinghe’s data was compromised by fresh water on Earth.

The Huffington Post contacted Wickramasinghe and invited him to respond to Plait’s criticism. Wickramasinghe wrote:

In 1962, [Hoyle and I] pioneered the theory of carbon grains in space to replace the old ice grain theory. This was vehemently resisted by the astronomical community at the outset, but with the dawn of infrared spectroscopy, the ice grain theory gave way to the carbon dust theory… Over a few years, after a great deal of model-fitting, we came to the conclusion that material similar to biomaterial fitted all the available data in astronomy … We considered the possibility that biology (microbiology) had a universal character, and no observations in astronomy or new information from biology has provided contrary evidence.

Regarding Plait’s and Kociolek’s main argument that the meteorite sample was contaminated by earth water algae or diatoms, Wickramasinghe continued: "But — there are also at least half a dozen species that diatom experts have not been able to identify."  This is where Plait’s and Kociolek’s criticism falls short since they can’t explain the origin of all the diatoms found in the meteorite.

This is not the first time that scientists finding evidence of extraterrestrial life in meteorites have been exposed to the criticism that their sample was contaminated by earth based microbial life. In August 1996, David McKay and a team of NASA scientists published their analysis of a Martian meteorite discovered in Antarctica. The meteorite was found to have carbon compounds that looked very much like fossil remains of ancient Martian microbes. Here is how Mackay explained their findings:

The carbonate globules are similar in texture and size to some terrestrial bacterially induced carbonate precipitates. Although inorganic formation is possible, formation of the globules by biogenic processes could explain many of the observed features, including the PAHs [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons]. The PAHs, the carbonate globules, and their associated secondary mineral phases and textures could thus be fossil remains of a past martian biota.

The announcement was big news at the time, and led to President Clinton making a statement contemplating the historical significance of the discovery. The 1996 discovery then got bogged down in scientific debate over whether or not the meteorite was polluted by Earth microbes. Critics claimed NASA scientists had not sufficiently accounted for this possibility. Not so according to a new 2009 study by NASA scientists, including McKay, from the Johnson Space Center that upheld the earlier findings and concluded: “None of the original features supporting our hypothesis for ALH84001 has either been discredited or has been positively ascribed to non-biologic explanations."

Wickramasinghe and his team have just begun the effort of defending their results from criticisms that their meteorite sample was contaminated, and their data therefore inconclusive. Given that controversy still swirls around the 1996 Mars meteorite case, we can expect the same for Wickramasinghe and his team’s claim of finding evidence of extraterrestrial fossils on a meteorite. It may be some time before scientists are willing to concede that Wickramasinghe may have just verified his theory of panspermia.

© Copyright 2013. Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Exopolitics.org 

This article is copyright © and should not be added in its entirety on other websites or email lists. Permission is granted to include an extract (e.g., introductory paragraph) of this article on website or email lists with a link to the original.

Further Reading

Copyright © 2019 Exopolitics Institute News Service. All Rights Reserved.